I walked into Target, thinking I'd find some of their clearance stuff. And as usual, I found dueling dirtbags in the aisle. The two biggest troublemakers were both there. One was pawing through the aisle, the other was pawing through the end cap.

I moseyed on down to look for an aisle of clearance stuff, knowing I didn't want to get in the middle of the wild dogs, mainly because I didn't want to lose a finger.

When I returned to the aisle, I saw a TON of good stuff on the end caps (03 FE, 03 series cars, etc) and Scalper Mike only had in his hand a Hooligan Hunt and a Hot Rod Passion. Earl the Mullet only had a Passion. Two big time scalpers, two full racks. Only three cars.

Curious.

Then Mike breezed a bit through the JL Ornaments and then turned to the new Barrett Jackson MB cars. He picked up the Shelby Cobra. I was mad now. But then he looked up at the price tag, sighed, and put it back. Then he took a half hearted swat at the Originals and left.

The Mullet was looking at the highway 35 cars and then came across the Decades Tin. He passed on all that and then went to the Matchbox which were full. He glanced at those, and walked back towards me. He stopped, picked up the PP Scooter, looked at it and put it back down. THEN HE PUT THE PASSION BACK. He glanced over at me with my hands full of B-J Matchbox cars and he shook his head. He walked out empty handed.

Could it be?

Could the glut of cars with a slightly higher price tag be making some people who are in it for the money back off? Is the bottom falling out? Tick tick tick

Let’s think about it. The market is saturated, pretty bad. There has never been a time where cars are more readily available and there has seldom been a time when more retailers were around. In my immediate Metro area there are a TON of places to go. Between Target, Wal* Mart, K Mart and TRU there are a total of 41 places that regularly have Hot Wheels and other diecast. This does not take into account any of the K*B stores, K*B Toy works, grocery stores, hobby shops or drug stores that also have toys.

And you also have to take into account what is available. Used to be just MB, HW and JL. But now there are Muscle Machines, Jada Toys, Revell, Racing Champs/Ertl, Route 66… And even within the old stand-bys there is a glut of stuff. And you have to be on the ball about who has what also. Each major retailer has exclusives, and trying to keep up with who has what is nearly impossible. Even harder would be trying make sure no one else can get them.

There are a lot of premium cars coming, and in many cases they are coming at premium prices. The Average collector will pay 5 bucks for a nice multi piece car that looks nice. But not many will pay the 100% “tax” on it. The basis of scalping and prospecting is turning big profits. Sell a new dollar car for three bucks. Sell a dollar Treasure Hunt for 30. Pretty big profits to justify the time and energy. But to sell, say an Originals Deora for the same kind of justification money it would have to go for 12-15. Each. Not worth it. Just not worth it. For one, because fewer people are buying secondary. To “Cover the market”, you gotta hit all 12 Targets in the area and buy every one you see. The numbers that are going into stores is growing.

The profit isn’t there.

And as always, there are a bunch of cars that are desirable, and a bunch of pegwarmers. But now it seems that some cars that were at one point desirable are becoming peg warmers. There are some castings that will Automatically sell. VW’s of any kind. Purple Passion. The Bikes. Cobras.  But even they are starting to sit. The Decades tin for instance has “the Bus”. A car so “sought after” that Mattel seemingly could have released it painted in Crayon and packaged in a used diaper and people would have been beating each other over the head to buy one. Or 20. But no… It is sitting. Forty bucks for one car that may be wanted and 9 cars that suck is just too much. And they are everywhere. People who wanted one got it, and at retail. Imagine how hard it would be to try and corner the market on that one.

Could that have been planned by Mattel? Could Mattel have been testing the water to see how far we would sink? Could they have been trying to deliver a blow in the battle against the secondary market? Could it’s failure had anything to do with the removal of the bus from the Preferred line?

Is this the beginning of the end for them? Signaling the overall beginning for us?

I just don’t know. But something is definitely afoot. To see a scalper who has been RUTHLESS in his quests, while in direct competition with another who has been twice as brutal, PUT BACK both a Passion and a Scooter… It’s like… It’s like seeing a Hyena walking past a dead Wildebeest and not taking a bite. Almost surreal. Like “instinct” is thrown out of whack.

And when I consider what is coming down the pike this year, I have to think that the end is near for the prospector.  NO WAY are one or two guys going to be able to snatch up extras of everything and turn them out for profit like they need to. Yeah, sure, the frenzy for certain releases will be there. VW’s as always, because (as I was told on HWC.com) “if you’re a real collector, you will snatch up anything VW”. I appreciated that advice from someone with such a firm grip on what is good and holy in collecting, but I already did that anyway. I drive a real VW. I am in the cult. I spent 35 dollars once on pages from an old magazine that advertised the one car that probably DIDN’T need advertising (the original beetle). I can’t explain why I did it… But that’s another take.

But getting back to my point.

Seems like this year is going to shake the trees a little and let the monkeys fall out. The market is saturated, the economy is soft, and the cars are plentiful. The buffet is full, and it appears that some people, not understanding how a buffet works, have gorged themselves.

Yummy.

Happy New Year.

--43Goalie